A Standard Life

His grandmother’s spirit visited him from time to time. It was the little things that made him aware: A fleeting memory. The cool fog that made him think of mornings on her farm.  She guided him through the hardest points in his life. Moments of great doubt.  Times of great change.

She had grown up during the hardscrabble years of the Great Depression. While her sister sat dressed up in her Sunday best, she was out in the barnyard, killing chickens. The blisters on her hands were proof she wasn’t afraid of work.  She had developed a work ethic that made a successful teacher and mother.  And grandmother.

The fog wrapped around the Standard Life Building as he walked down the busy downtown street.  Storms were crossing the Mississippi River so moisture was streaming up from the Gulf of Mexico. You could almost smell New Orleans early that morning: The humidity was at 100% and rising.

He looked at the vapor as it tickled the illuminated sign that read “Standard Life”.

A sign. How he would love a sign.

His bank had laid him off six-months ago.  It was a passionless job but a job none-the-less.  It kept the lights on, a roof over their heads and food on the table.  The Great Recession had put an end to that. An emergency surgery on his son had also put an end to what little savings they had.  He and his wife’s marriage was being torn apart by the drumbeat of crises..  He looked back up at the sign.  “Standard Life”.  The morning fog would dance in and out of the letters, hiding some of them from view.

The sign on the building now read: “Stand”

Stand. The man looked up at the word and realized it was time to stand on his own. He needed courage.  He needed strength.

A slight breeze blew across his face and made the fog swirl again.

The sign on the building now said, “Life.”

Live life.  Live it to the fullest.  His bank job had been a dead end for several years. He knew it. But it was comfortable. It paid the bills. But he wasn’t truly living.  He needed to take a stand and live his life to the fullest.  A warm feeling crept back into a stone-dead heart.

He put his hands in his pocket and pulled out his iPhone.  He started to take a picture of the building when another gust of wind blew the fog around one more time.  “Standard Life.”

He had had a pretty standard life. No more.

Up on letters, a disembodied voice said, “Good job with the fog. A very original and clever idea.”

“Sometimes a sign is a sign. That boy is as hardheaded as you were.”

The grandmother materialized next to her long-time husband’s spirit.

“But I think he’s going to be OK. I think I got him safely out of the fog he was in.”

With their grandson safely on his way, they both laughed and disappeared into the morning mist.